1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method that can execute a copying or transmitting process using a scanner.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an image processing apparatus, such as a multifunction peripheral (MFP), there exists a technique of generating “image region information” corresponding to each pixel of an input image and performing appropriate image processing on the input image for every region (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-136505).
The “image region information” includes information, such as information of a text region, information of a halftone region or information of a text-in-halftone region.
In addition, a method for generating image region information from an input image is discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-136505.
Further, when the image region information of the image is determined using the technique, a pixel pattern of a predetermined region that is needed to determine the image region information is used. Therefore, a buffer is provided to hold pixels of the predetermined region.
In addition, a buffer that holds a pixel pattern to perform a determination, such as a halftone determination, also needs to be provided.
On the other hand, there is an image processing technique using a transparent toner to show glossiness for an output image on a surface of paper.
Since the transparent toner does not have colors distinguished by a reading ability of a scanner, a general scanner cannot detect glossiness information indicating that an image portion using the transparent toner has luster, when an image is read.
Accordingly, the image region information including the glossiness information cannot be generated from an image input by the scanner.
Thus, in order to acquire the image region information from the image using the transparent toner, the image region information needs to be acquired using a special scanner or detecting device (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 05-333450 and 09-222361).
Further, there is a technique called “super-resolution processing” that acquires one frame of high-resolution image using a plurality of frames of images having constant resolution.
By using this technique, an image having a resolution of 1200 dpi can be generated using an image having a resolution of 600 dpi, and a high-resolution image can be obtained without greatly changing the configuration of an image processing apparatus according to the conventional art (“Super-resolution processing by Plural Frames of Digital Image Data” (Ricoh Technical Report No. 24, November, 1998)).
Image region information is generated from an image converted to have a high resolution and is used for the image converted to have a high resolution, thereby performing proper image processing.
However, if the resolution of the input image data is increased, the number of pixels needed to perform an image region determination in a predetermined region is increased.
For this reason, in order to perform a proper image region determination for the image data converted to have a high resolution, if image region information is generated from the high-resolution image data, a large buffer needs to be provided. As a result, a circuit scale may be increased.
As described above, when the image using the transparent toner is read by the reading device such as a scanner, the glossiness information of the image needs to be acquired using a special scanner or detecting device.
However, the glossiness information can be acquired only when the image is read by the scanner.
That is, when the glossiness information is included in the read image, the image including the glossiness information is converted into image data having a high resolution, and glossiness information corresponding to the high-resolution image data cannot be generated from the image data.